Researcher at the Leiden University the Netherlands

I am a researcher at the Leiden University, the Netherlands, but I was born and brought up in a small village whose name is arduous to pronounce, Panangangara in Kerala, India. I have been exploring the stories and histories of the Indian Ocean and Islamic worlds, with a special interest on South India. With a generous grant from the Social Science Research Council (New York, USA), currently I study the matriarchal Muslim communities of the Indian Ocean littoral from East Africa to South/East Asia.

I am affiliated to the Dutch Institute in Morocco (NIMAR); International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS); and, African Studies Centre, Leiden (ASCL). I received my doctorate at the Leiden University Institute for History in 2016. I read my M.A. and M.Phil. at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), and undergraduate studies at Darul Huda Islamic University and University of Calicut (both in Malappuram, India).

My CV